Iranian Cyber Espionage Group CopyKittens Successful, But Not Skilled

It doesn't always take a highly skilled adversary to create major problems for organizations. Sometimes, unsophisticated but persistent threat actors can be just as effective at it. One example is CopyKittens, a cyber espionage group with links to Iran that has been operating since at least 2013. The group, profiled in a report this week from Israel-based ClearSky Cyber Security and Trend Micro, so far has displayed little of the sophistication associated with many modern state-sponsored cyber espionage operations. Yet, it has successfully managed to exfiltrate large volumes of data from targeted military and government organizations, academic institutions, municipal authorities and IT companies in Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United States.